A lawsuit has been filed against Rev. Peter Miqueli, accusing the pastor of stealing over $1 million in donations to support and pay for sex with his gay lover.

Fr. Peter Miqueli, who continues to work as a pastor in St. Frances de Chantal Church in the Bronx, has had a case brought against him by his current and former parishioners at two churches in New York City.

Miqueli also spent significant funds on “illicit and prescription drugs”, to the tune of $60,000 in 2012; used church funds to finance the purchase of a $264,000 New Jersey home; spent stolen funds on vacations; and was so brazen in his theft, he pinched money directly from the collection plates.

The suit seeks an end to the “truly sinful conduct” which includes the claim that the priest paid Crist $1,000 a session ‘to act out his sexual fantasies’ by role-paying where Crist was the ‘master or dominant in a BDSM relationship.’ Father Miqueli played ‘the slave, ‘ suit says.

The prostitute has been named as Keith Crist, who would be paid $1000-a-session for sadomasochistic sex with the Catholic priest.

Another scandal is hitting the Archdiocese of New York after parishioners from St. Frances de Chantal in Bronx, New York, filed a lawsuit against an alleged gay priest.

The lawsuit goes on to say that repairmen at the priest’s house often saw “several unstacked piles of cash, each approximately one foot high” scattered around the priest’s residence.

Crist hung up on a reporter and Miqueli declined to answer a call through a church receptionist.

“We can’t understand it“, said Bronx parishioner Jack Lynch.

At de Chantal, Miqueli briefly tried to have Crist serve as the parish’s new business manager, according to the complaint – only to have the Archdiocese give the boyfriend the boot after a complaint.

The lawsuit says he provided no accounting of the money and routinely deposited the cash into his own personal account at an HSBC in Hauppauge, L.I. “We suspect a scandal behind the scandal”. “This is a bad guy”, Mr Dowd said. Church members have created a petition and a Facebook page demanding Father Miqueli’s removal.

The Archdiocese said they are taking the allegations seriously and have ordered an audit of the parish. “We have asked the people making the allegations to document it, substantiate the allegations, so that if they’re true we can take the appropriate action” Zwilling said. An investigation earlier this year resulted in minor financial changes to the church’s governing. “We’re only asking them to look into our suspicions, that’s all they had to do”.

Miqueli, who has a salary of $2,545 a month, now has more than $900,000 in savings and a brokerage account, according to the court filings.